


Does planning for a better future count as treason?

by Munnin, yakalskovich



Series: Necessary Pebbles verse [14]
Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)
Genre: Eadu, M/M, Plotting against the Empire, Rock climbing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-17
Updated: 2017-05-17
Packaged: 2018-11-01 19:38:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,636
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10928655
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Munnin/pseuds/Munnin, https://archiveofourown.org/users/yakalskovich/pseuds/yakalskovich
Summary: Galen and Bodhi go rock-climbing again and make the most of the privacy to talk about the future.





	Does planning for a better future count as treason?

"Eadu has its own kind of beauty, if you disregard the discomfort," Galen said, sitting on a rock near the top of the ridge they had been climbing.

The top was pointy and wind-tossed and not for sitting. The ridge was high, and you could see far when it wasn’t actively raining, which it wasn’t, for once. You could see the Imperial facilities dotted over a mountainside, you could see gorges and small rivers and even the ledge where Bodhi had crashed his old ship, now mostly dismantled by droids.

"If we sit here at planetfall, I think we can see a sliver of the sun before it, too, vanishes," he added.

"I want to take you back to the stars." Bodhi pulled himself up to perch next to Galen, his hip pressing against Galen's.

Galen pulled him close, leaning his cheek against Bodhi's dark hair. "You will," he said. "One day, I will be in your ship with you, and we will get away from this together. And if we are lucky, both Jyn and your family will be somewhere in the picture."

Bodhi nodded, his arm around Galen's waist. "My sisters have their own lives now. And my brothers and mother..." He shrugged. Family was himself now. The girls didn’t need him any more. "I want to be with you, and free." He hugged Galen tight. "So how do we do it?" 

"I can't take the plans," Galen said, softly. "That would be noticed too easily. I don't even know if we can get all the way to Saw. I'll have to prepare a message we can pass on before going into deep hiding, so the rebels know to find them. So _Jyn_ knows to find them."

Bodhi nodded, understanding the logic in that. "I'll reach out to my brothers. My orders are in, pending the medic's sign off on my health. My first run is to Jedha. I'll ask for a day's leave there. Given my near death experience it shouldn't be hard to get a standard day's leave."

"My brave pilot," Galen said. "But love gives us wings, and new hope. Even me."

"Not brave. Greedy. I want to be with you. And I'm willing to do whatever I have to to be with you."

Galen was quiet, stunned by how proud and happy that declaration made him feel. The greed for him would make any bravery worth it for Bodhi. It felt quite humbling. Bodhi rested his head on Galen's shoulder, just... holding him and watching the gap in the clouds. It was like a miracle, or a sign -- in that gap, low among the steep mountains, a sliver of watery sunlight appeared.

Bodhi looked up, taking in the sliver of light and warmth that came through the gap in the clouds. "It's beautiful." 

"Up there," Galen said, "we will go, and then far, far away."

"Far, far away." Bodhi nodded. "We'll find Jyn together, I promise."

"She is alive," Galen said. "Surely I would have felt it in the force if she wasn't, the way I felt Lyra..."

Bodhi nodded and hugged Galen again, "I envy you that certainty. But I trust you. You know the Force better than I do."

"I can feel you in it," Galen said. "As something special in all the weight of existence that causes eddies in its flow. It's not that magical or unusual."

"It's magic to me." Bodhi shrugged, watching the last rays of planet-set. "All I have is this." He tangled his fingers in Galen's. "And the memories we've made together. But they're enough. They'll guide me back to you."

"We have the knowledge that we belong together," Galen said softly, "and the memory of the other's voice saying _I love you._ "

"The memory of the other's voice." He echoed, resting his head back on Galen's shoulder. "I love you. They're not... good words. They're not big enough."

"We are one in the Force, and it uses us as one," Galen said, softly. "It is bigger, but starker."

"I'm not sure I like the starkness." Bodhi admitted softly, "I don't trust it."

"But it's what we get -- either the bare starkness of the impersonal Force, or those personal feelings that seem to small for the power of what we are," Galen said, smiling into Bodhi's eyes.

"I choose this." Bodhi took Galen's hand and brought it to his lips. "You."

"Me, and you, and a way out of here, until the Force has what it wants from us," Galen said, looking into Bodhi's eyes instead of the bleak landscape of Eadu. "Then we can put a picture of this place on our wall and be done."

"I should have thought to bring a capture with me." He'd like a picture of Galen too, something to keep close. For now, he looked deep into those beautiful, warm, strange eyes.

"A capture," Galen said. "Yes. Before you have to go back on duty, we have to..."

"Something tangible. A holo or something?" Bodhi tried to keep the note of pleading out of his voice.

"I do have a holo recorder..." Galen said. "It even does landscape, not just people. But people, too, of course."

"Will you record something for me? Just... saying I love you? Anything?"

"Oh, Bodhi!" Galen leant in to kiss him. "Of course I will!"

Bodhi pulled him closer, kissing him deeper. There's a fear, a desperation in that kiss. This was their chance to say the things they dare not say. Plan what they dare not mention. Love, as they dare not let go.

Galen kissed him again. "It's a good idea," he said. "I'll make another holo, just in case. To take to Jyn, if a way to her or Saw Gerrera suddenly opens for you. It's not something to rely on, but we should still be prepared that the Force might give it to us."

"That's a good idea. Even if he doesn't trust me, he'll trust a message from you."

"Hopefully, he will trust me in person," Galen said softly, "but in case I am not there, we can still reach Jyn, and alert her to" --- pause --- "the monster I am making."

Bodhi nodded. "Just in case I manage to meet with him, when I go back to Jedha next. I don't like my luck with my brothers but... it's worth a try." He squeezed Galen's hand. "The monster you're bringing down."

"The monster I am hoping Saw, Jyn and their rebels will bring down," Galen said, softly. "I am not a fighter -- I was always a pacifist! I still sometimes wonder how I managed to end up doing this for Krennic, Tarkin and their Empire. Sometimes, I almost used to expect to wake up from the nightmare and find..." He sighed.

"Find yourself in Lyra's arms." Bodhi finished, without bitterness. He had the same fear but in reverse, that this dream was too sweet, too much more than he deserved.

Galen nodded. "Home safe in our apartment on Corruscant, woken from a noise that is Jyn coming home from a party with her friends -- she is old enough for that, and in that other world without the Empire and the war, she would be free to both study and party -- and forgetting about Krennic and Eadu and the -- murder machine. Who even in their sane mind thinks of such a thing??"

Galen shook his head. "Now, I don't want to wake up to a world without you, this whole political nonsense is apparently all real, so the only way out of it is forward."

"If it meant having them again, I would begrudge you that." Bodhi whispered, "As long as I got to keep the memory of you."

"There is no going back," Galen whispered in turn, "but I so hope we find my Jyn again, and she won't begrudge me your love."

"Then we go forward." Bodhi cupped Galen's cheek and kissed him again. He wasn’t quite so sure Galen's daughter would understand. After all, they're probably about the same age. But that was a worry for another day. They had enough worries crowding in on them, no point adding to the pile. 

Or so his grandmother would have said.

"There is enough of the Force for all," Galen said, softly. "And enough love. The Sith never understood that."

Of love and the Force, Galen is Bodhi's quota, and he was okay with that. Even if it's all he got, all he deserved. "Enough love." He echoed, stroking back Galen's messy hair.

Galen briefly dropped his head onto Bodhi's shoulder, and sighed. "Yes, there is enough, but we have a long way to go until we can settle down with it with a clear conscience."

Bodhi laced his arms around Galen, content to hold him close. He looked up at the sky as the clouds start to gather again, wiping away the last view of the setting planet with fat drops of threatening rain. "We should head back." He hated the words, even as he said them.

Galen sighed, and nodded. "We will, of course, get wet," he said, "but might avoid drenched."

"We can warm up in the fresher." It wasn’t the same as the freedom out here but it was something. Bodhi paused, cupping Galen's cheek and looking into those blood-warm eyes. "We have a plan, at least the first steps of one. We'll make this work. It will be worth it." As much in an attempt to buoy himself up as Galen.

"It will be worth it, even if we have to turn the Galaxy upside-down," Galen promised him.

It was the promise of it that warmed Bodhi's heart and he stole one more long kiss before beginning the climb down.

And after that very last kiss in complete privacy, Galen followed.


End file.
